Finding Wally among Chilean Entrepreneurs

This paper identifies the main characteristics of a subset of Chilean firms that has the potential to positively impact the economy through employment generation. The study also verifies whether their traits systematically differ from those of other firms. Based on a mean comparison exercise, the results show that this particular business population is rather heterogeneous in nature and in terms of the impact it has over the economy at least in terms of job creation. The entrepreneurs within this subset exhibit some varying traits, with education being the most important. Overall, this paper demonstrates that identifying highly potential ventures is as difficult as locating Wally in a flea market: they do not represent more than 15 percent of the business population, implying that horizontal policies to promote business development may be diluted within a population of low-performing businesses